


Shadow Of The Giant

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:33:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4234020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternative Universe - Modern Setting: Jim Kirk, a former agent of the mighty Federation, is continuing being a screw-up. He is perfectly fine with the life he has right now. So why doesn't he say no (or defends better) when Pike, head of the famous USS Enterprise, recruits him (read: drags screaming and kicking) back into Starfleet?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Orson Scott Card’s book, which belongs into Ender’s saga.  
> I was under heavy influence by Peter F. Hamilton’s Fallen Dragon (check it out! It’s a great book) when I started writing this. The story is in no way the same, but if anyone has read the book, they might be able to recognize some technology and elements from the book (seriously, prime is just too good to be overlooked, and skins as well!)  
> Otherwise, this is completely AU in both senses: it’s not happening in our modern age, and not in the Star Trek universe.  
> Holograms are real, not just SF (musion.com).  
> Magazine: a container or detachable receptacle for holding a supply of cartridges to be fed automatically to the breech of a gun (says wiki).  
> And for the end: not beta-ed, and I don’t own them.

The dark and loud room, full of smoke, fitted Jim’s dark mood right now. The drinks weren’t too terrible, and the music wasn’t too lame, so he quietly stayed behind the bar, nursing his now warm drink.

He acknowledged the few attempts that were made on him, but he promptly ignored all of them. He really didn’t have time or will for it. Then his phone chimed. He didn’t even need to look at it, he knew what he would see.

It was all so dull, so lame, so recurring that it was already boring, and the not-fun part hasn’t even begun yet.

He simply finished his drink and stood up, searching his pockets for his wallet that was supposed to be there somewhere, when a heavy arm fell on his shoulder, and a harsh voice said: “There is no need for that. I’ll pay for you, _Captain_.”

Jim froze, and peaked at the mirror behind the bar, which was showing the person behind him. It was exactly as he suspected. “Well, hello to you too, Barbar, what are you doing here?” he turned and asked cheerfully, maybe even a little too much cheerfully, since a few patrons looked at him. “Has your prison sentence finished early? You should’ve called and we could…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, because suddenly a fist slammed into his face, shoving him into the bar, getting a small yell of discomfort out of him, but not disturbing anyone at all.

He stood up and turned to finally look at the big man, who was nicknamed ‘Barbar’ by Jim. There were three other guys beside the big one, and all were looking at like he just offended their mothers.

“Oh, I see you have company. Fine, we are at least equal,” he managed to say before a kick in the stomach and a knee in his face, which broke his nose, send him to the floor, where he was a victim to a lot of kicks and spites.

Before he could pick himself up and retaliate in a manner most befitting the situation, a loud voice yelled: “Enough! Everybody, out! This is the police!” And faster than the speed of light, the bar was empty. Curious how laws or physics don’t apply to people disappearing from places of crime when policemen appear.

Jim finally succeeded to pick himself up, and when he looked in the face of the leading cop, he smiled, blood dripping from his forehead and nose: “Hello, Carol. Nice to see you again.”

She looked angry, and that was nothing new, but the boys who now grabbed Jim and showed him on the table, handcuffing his hands behind his back, were.

“You two are new. Hey, what happened to Hooper and Lloyd? They were so nice that…”

Again, he was interrupted by Carol’s angry sigh: “Can’t you stop, Kirk? This time you didn’t even attempt to hide. Why do you escape if we find you the next week? You know how much I like you – one more escapade like this one, and the next time you get a bullet in your head. And if anyone objectifies, I can put one in their as well.”

He smiled again and shook his head: “C’mon, Carol, admit you love me.”

“I do not. And it’s Wallace, for the record. Now put him under. I don’t want anything like that pool accident happening again,” she said to the cops, who nodded.

Jim said in distress: “Hey, wait, what’s goin’ on…” when an injection, pressed in his shoulder, caused him to go limp and fall on the floor, because both policemen suddenly got an idea of loosening their grips on him.

Carol looked at him with fury in her eyes, and murmured to herself: “I still can’t believe it.”

 

Everybody in the USS (United Secret Service) Enterprise, one of the most powerful and newest branches of Starfleet, American division of the world-wide Federation, knew of Jim Kirk and his history with them.

The young, brash cadet, son of the almighty (dead) George Kirk, was recruited at age 19, trained for three years, has done one and only one case, and deserted after that.

At age 23, Jim Kirk was a wanted criminal in the most states of America, including some abroad. There was some fuzz about getting him assassinated, but it was quickly shut down. Starfleet right now, specifically the Enterprise, couldn’t afford to lose such an asset, even just a potential one, especially not now when they were in the middle of a heated rivalry with the USS Vengeance, led by infamous Admiral Marcus.

Chris Pike, the head of the Enterprise, has issued a warrant for the young Kirk, which specified one condition: alive (nothing was said about ‘and well’).

A lot of lives depended on that young idiot, though no one wanted to admit it, due to Kirk’s giant ego and possible extortion.

 

So at the moment, superior commander ‘the Boss’ Christopher Pike was having a bad headache, directly connected to the fact that Jim Kirk was caught once again. This time, he could see through the report Carol gave to him, that Jim didn’t even attempt to hide. It really was pitiful.

Pike had few precious moments to himself while Kirk was in medbay, as they called it, probably seducing Chapel or other nurses. He used those moments to compose himself and prepare to not strangle Kirk the minute kid steps into his office.

“Uhura, have you had any luck with those messages we intercepted yet?” he asked Uhura, who just came into his office, giving himself something besides Kirk to think of.

“Yes, I’m definitely making progress, but it’ll take more work. It would be great if I had Gaila and her team,” she said, crossing her arms, daring him to say no to her.

He shook his head: “Not possible, they are tied up in that case I gave McCoy and Rodriguez, and Chekov is definitely off.”

She sighed, clearly stating her annoyance: “Sir, I do respect you, but this is heading nowhere! We ought to ask Vengeance for help.”

“Not a chance!” he protested, and to his luck Uhura’s angry reply was interrupted by two security guards who pushed Kirk inside.

Uhura gave Pike a pointed stare and Kirk a look of disguise, and left.

Kirk was still in his a bit bloodied clothes, hands handcuffed behind him, and his nose visibly broken, but somehow patched up.

Pike rubbed his head; it has already started to hurt.

“Leave,” he nodded to security guards, who saluted and left, pushing Kirk into a chair. Pike stared at him, and Kirk tried to look anywhere but his eyes.

“This has to stop, before I give agent Wallace permission to kill,” he finally said. “I will not just stand by and watch you destroy yourself. In the next brawl you can get a knife in the chest, and then what? I am urging you to decide now. I’m giving you the same choice – a prison camp or service in the Enterprise. And this time, you _will_ decide.”

Kirk rolled his eyes: “I heard this little ‘speech’ of yours countless times. What makes you think that I would reconsider now? Or that you’ll keep me detained long enough to answer? I’m going to escape beforehand, and you know that.”

Pike leaned forward: “Because new players have just entered the game. You haven’t heard anything yet, the news are very fresh even for us. Romulan spies are everywhere, including one or two here, in this building, and Klingons have made three attacks in this month alone. Something is going on, and I have put all my people on finding out what it is. But I’m still missing the best,” he said.

Kirk snorted: “Thanks, but no thanks. I thought I told you a loud **no** a long time ago. Can I go now? Or will you continue to threaten me?”

He tried to stand up, but Pike didn’t move, so he remained seated.

“Kid, this is no laughing matter. The whole Federation is threatened, and if we don’t act quickly, we’ll be left defenceless in the war with Klingons, Romulans, and the _still_ active Terra Prime.”

That got Kirk’s attention: “What do you mean, still active?”

Pike silently congratulated himself. He had Kirk hooked. “Well, it wasn’t destroyed as we all thought. Your famous first job was obviously a disaster.”

“But we destroyed their HQ, and almost all of their weapons, data and agents! All intelligence reports said the same; that the rest of the Terra Prime agents turned over to Romulans, or in a few cases, Klingons, and are done for good. How could they still be active?”

“I have a theory,” Pike said. “And it goes like this: you are a double agent.”

Kirk angrily stood up, almost tripping his chair in the process: “Sir, that’s not true and you know it! If I was a double agent, I would be dead by now. Carol would see to it.”

“Then prove it – help us. Look, your father…” started Pike, but was immediately cut off.

“Do not bring my father into this, commander,” said Kirk with a cold, low voice, that usually send people running from him as fast as they could, but Pike remained silent.

They stared into each other for a moment, then Kirk leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, saying: “It would definitely be _horrible_ to see Enterprise, or even Starfleet, destroyed.”

“Except that this isn’t such a ridiculous thing, Kirk. I said that the whole Federation is threatened, and I meant it. The world peace is on the verge of collapsing, and it will, if we don’t act quickly. I’m sure you aren’t concerned with that, but it wouldn’t be too great to watch your former co-workers get killed, because someone’s ego was bigger than this whole building,” yelled now really frustrated Pike, and thanked himself for installing double noise isolation in the walls of his office. “Maybe you don’t care for their lives after all, but I’m not going to tell the brass that the world peace has ended because of one stubborn brat!”

“Such high hopes,” snorted Kirk. "It's not my fault you have them."

“And I know you can fulfil them. I dare you to do better than your father.” Pike paused for a second, then said: “If you can.” Kirk looked away, then pressed his lips into a pout: “You’ve got me. I surrender. What should I do?”

Pike now finally relaxed, and while he leaned back in his chair, he signalled the security officers, which stood outside his office this whole time.

“Right now? Nothing. A bit later? Am… We’ll see.”

 

The beautiful dark lady, who was called Uhura, codename ‘Empress’, according to Pike, has first ignored Kirk’s flirting, then refused to tell him her first name, and was also generally very mean to him.

She escorted him to a conference room, in which behind a big table were sitting some human beings, right now having a yelling match and not paying attention to anything else at all.

So she drew her gun and shot in the air above her head, silencing everyone. Kirk looked at the ceiling, uncomfortably noticing it already had several holes in it.

Then he winced when she said: “Everyone, this is the criminal, James T. Kirk, codename: ‘Captain’, at least that is what his dossier says.”

There were some nods in his direction, some shouts, but Kirk ignored them.

Uhura then turned to him: “Now, Kirk, listen and remember!”

She pointed at the cute Japanese guy with lovely black hair: “That’s Hikaru Sulu. He is our muscle and designated driver, codename: ‘Pilot’. You should be afraid of him and his sword.”

Then she nodded at the young little teenager: “And that’s his Russian boyfriend, Pavel Chekov. Do not mess with him. His codename is ‘Vodka’, and he is the best hacker we have.”

A girl with bright red hair and green eyes let out a small shout: “Hey!”

“That’s Gaila, codename ‘Green’. She is a hacker too, but a different type,” Uhura said, her finger already venturing on, stopping at a short man with ruffled brown hair: “Montgomery Scott, codename ‘Beagle’. Don’t ask. He is Scottish, and is our mechanic and tech guy.”

The next target her finger selected were two men, surprisingly just silently sitting. One’s face was totally emotionless, his black hair in an unusual haircut, and he was dressed in simple black clothes. “This is Spock, codename ‘Vulcan’, from Switzerland. He doesn’t know how to crack a joke, but he knows everything else, and has a PhD in something. Uh, he is ops and logistic, but that’s not where his PhD lies. And that is…”

The man who was sitting beside Spock now caught all of Kirk’s attention. He was simply gorgeous. Broad shoulders, dark messy hair, hazel (with a bit of green) eyes, wonderful. Kirk was so distracted by his appearance, he almost missed his introduction: “…Leonard McCoy, codename ‘Bones’, from Georgia. He is a normal terrene agent, like you, but with a specialty, at which he is actually good at, unlike you. He has a MD.”

Kirk rolled his eyes, quite used to her harsh words by now, then winked Leonard, who pretended not to notice.

Now Uhura looked around the room: “That’s for introductions. I believe superior commander Pike will be joining us in a matter of minutes, until then, he is all yours,” she said, and exited the room.

Kirk brightly smiled, and opened his mouth to say something, when the Japanese guy, Hikaru, jumped to his feet, and said: “I’m out of here. I am not working with Kirk.”

His boyfriend nodded, and went over to join him.

The gorgeous guy stood up too: “Same with me.”

“If ye are going, so am I,” decided the mechanic, and Kirk looked questionably to the remained two persons sitting.

Gaila offered him a sly smile, and Spock merely lifted an eyebrow. So he turned back, and gazed over the four that were now standing. This was nothing new to him – people deciding not to work with him when they learned who he was, or even not acknowledging his presence in the worst cases. Nothing he couldn’t or hasn’t dealt with before.

But his attempt to say something interrupted Pike, who chose right that moment to walk into the room, closely followed by Uhura and Wallace, both baring laptops and some paper files.

When Pike noticed standing agents, he sharply looked at them and nodded at the chairs. No one responded, and he said, while setting up computers: “Sit down, all of you, right now.”

“Sir, with all due respect…” started McCoy, but Pike cut him off: “No, I don’t want to hear anything. You will sit your ass down right now and then you will listen to what I or agent Kirk have to say. After that, we can disguise your involvement. I know I have called you off from your cases, but this is way more important than anything you were doing.”

They seemed silenced, and hesitatingly they slowly sat down, one by one, McCoy being the last. Kirk noticed that, giving him a smile, and receiving a sigh of annoyance in return, but he didn’t care.

“As you can see,” begun Pike, pointing at the screen, “we intercepted multiple messages and communications from all three of the opposing forces, and through…”

He was interrupted by Carol: “Sir, why are we showing Kirk classified material? What if he is a double agent? What if he just wants information? What if he isn’t Kirk at all? What if… There are number of reasons you shouldn’t be doing what you are doing right now.”

Pike shook his head: “I went over all of your questions. All have very high probability, yes, I admit that, but I decided in Kirk’s favour. We need him.”

“Can those who despise him leave?” asked Sulu, and Kirk snickered, receiving an angry look from Pike, while he said: “No, they have to stay even longer. Now could you please act like mature adults for a moment? Kirk is here, yes, but that doesn’t mean that you all have to behave like him.”

 

At the end of the conference, in which Kirk found out almost nothing new, he was assigned to his new quarters.

Obviously, they expected that he would live there at the HQ now. What a stupid idea. He didn’t really care, but his new team bothered him. Because of reasons, Pike divided them. Gaila, Spock and Carol under him were one team, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura were under McCoy the second one.

They weren’t competing, because Pike gave them different cases. Kirk’s crew, as he started calling it, was working on getting the information about Romulans, while McCoy’s team was working on tracing down movements of renewed Terra Prime.

Kirk was a little agitated when agent ‘always-cold-and-annoyed-with-him’ Uhura informed him of Pike’s commands. His ‘crew’ wasn’t exactly perfect, but it would have to do. If he was an agent again, he was going to be the best.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the next chapter!

“So, team, what do we have here?” he asked Gaila, Spock and Carol, who were leaning over a bunch of papers and computers, talking and whispering to each other, when he finally arrived at their arranged meeting place in his new office.

“Well, first, everything we already know about Romulans, and that’s not much,” said Carol.

Kirk slipped in a chair next to her: “Did I ever mention how sexy your accent is?”

She ignored him, and went on: “But then the Narada appeared, and everything went a bit weird.”

“Narada?” he asked.

“A very good, super armed and super evil division of the Romulans. It’s lead by someone called Nero, and they are specialized in attacking only American outposts,” said Gaila.

“Only American? That’s weird,” commented Kirk.

“Yes, they are a small division, operation only in North America, the operating place of Starfleet. They are more presented here in the USA than Canada. They have already destroyed one service, the Kelvin,” answered Spock in his stoic voice.

Jim stood up: “But that was years ago! How can we be sure they were the ones who attacked and destroyed USS Kelvin almost 23 years ago?”

“Their attack pattern and what they left behind the Kelvin correspond with what they did with Klingons five days ago,” said Carol, and turned the laptop to him.

“With Klingons?” Kirk sounded intrigued. He hasn’t heard anything. And that bothered him. Not a lot of things happened without him knowing about them.

“They destroyed three of their outposts, with more than two hundredth men,” said Gaila. “All dead. Nothing left. Just like Kelvin.”

“How’s that no one heard anything? I mean, general public,” asked Kirk.

“Well, we kept it silent. Only the command of the Klingon Defence Forces was alerted, as far as I know, and they wanted to keep things silent as well,” said Gaila.

“Then why don’t we just let them be? Let them destroy Klingons, and we’ll deal with them later, when they are weakened.”

He grinned at his cleverness. Sometimes he was just so brilliant.

“Except that it isn’t that simple,” said Carol, who now brought up a video. “They left a message, for Klingons, but we got it too. You might want to see it,” she said and pressed play.

Kirk leaned forward, and stared into the coated dark man, who was standing in front of the camera. He couldn’t see his eyes or nose, only sharp mouth and the tattoos that extended that far up from his neck.

He was saying something, but not in English or any language Kirk knew, so he looked at Gaila for help.

“Oh, yeah, it is in a weird, very rare, old Native American’s language. Uhura translated it for us. Listen,” said Gaila.

The voice that spoke now was cold, mechanic, but in English.

“It is unfortunate that you _were_ opposing us. We are extremely disappointed. In our eyes, you are criminals, as big as the ‘mighty’ Federation. But right now, we are more focused on Starfleet. We do not want to go into a war with you. We want a truce, nothing more. We still despise you, do not forget that, but…”

Now the person paused, like they were thinking, or just for the effect.

“But we despise Starfleet, especially the Enterprise, more. We want them dead.”

The message ended, and Kirk looked over to his crew: “Well, what do you think? _Especially_ the Enterprise? What are they playing?”

“We cannot trace the sender nor identify them,” said Gaila. "These guys are very good. And believe me when I say that."

“No, I mean what do you think of the message? Threating, ha? When was this send you say?” he asked.

“It’s not important,” continued Carol. “The interesting bit is, that Romulans deny their involvement with this. They are saying Narada isn’t theirs.”

“Then how do we know that they are Romulan? Then why do we think they are Romulan?” Jim asked. He was a bit lost. The last time he was a head of the investigation was almost a year ago, and that time he was with a team that was actually cooperating, but he had to pull everything out of these guys.

“Their tattoo style and dress code match, and their behaviour is similar. But they most certainly are better armed and better prepared. And there are no women, as per rules.”

“Oh, are you disappointed?” he asked, then changed the theme: “Okay, we’ve got work to do. Gaila, assemble the profile of everyone we know was and is involved, then of every suspect, send it to me as soon as you are finished. Spock, please look into their tactics and de-code that message they sent! It’s not just an empty threat, something is behind it. I bet it’s a real message. And Carol, sweetheart, please find out where they are getting their weapons from, if they are really that weird and special, they should be easily traced. That’s all, dismissed. Not you, thought, Carol. Wait up.”

When Gaila and Spock left without another word, Carol turned to Jim and hissed: “ _Sweetheart_? One more and I’m walking out.”

“Okay, just calm down. Tell me, why Uhura hates me?” he rather asked.

She shook her head and said: “Well, she just doesn’t want to be associated with the biggest whore and an asshole in Starfleet.”

Then she turned and walked out. If she stayed, she would see Kirk’s hurt look on his face, which quickly disappeared.

 

It wasn’t a brilliant first day, but Jim knew it could have gotten a lot worse. At least he was with a team that didn’t loathe or hate him _totally_ , just a little bit. It was his own fault, really. Why was he acting like a jerk? Right, because of that stupid plan.

He stopped in his mid-thought.

He was acting as a jackass because he was one, and didn’t really know how to react or act any other way.

He was feeling so miserable right now.

His quarters were at the top of the not-so-low building so he had to wait for the elevator at the end of his quite short first shift, when he heard laughing. Soon around the corner came nurse Chapel, Uhura, Gaila and one and only, McCoy, obviously on their way to something. Then they noticed him, and their laughter died off.

Jim tried to look cheerful, and with his acting abilities, he put on a real show: “Hi guys! On your way somewhere?”

“Yes, and you are not invited,” said Uhura, cold as always (‘always’ was only one day, but that was enough for Jim Kirk).

“Oh c’mon. You will love me pretty soon, I promise!”

“The only reason that I haven’t punched you in the face yet is that my knuckles would probably break from that thick head of yours. Not worth it,” she said.

He shrugged: “But that’s just you. What about you, guys?”

“Uhura is the boss of us, so what she says is the law,” smirked Gaila.

Then something terrible occurred to Jim: “Wait, guys, are you going on a double date?”

“No,” said McCoy and Uhura.

“Yes,” said Gaila.

“Maybe,” said Chapel.

“Okay, so could I tag along?” he asked, relieved, but by Uhura’s icy killing glance already knew the answer when she simply ignored him, turning to Chapel: “Come on. We are just wasting our time.”

 

Later, in his quarters, Jim opened his bags, which were delivered earlier that day. Definitely Pike’s doing, and Jim found a bit unsettling that Pike knew which hotel he lived in. But due to his profession, that wasn’t so weird after all.

There were three bags, one for his clothes, one for the other stuff he owned, and one for weapons. Of course, now he would have to get rid of the weapons, or put them in common or public artillery, whatever were they calling it.

Then he looked around. There were most definitely installed cameras, and he could only hope there weren’t any in the bathroom (again).

He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so he relaxed a bit, still feeling a bit unsettled about his new recruitment into Starfleet, especially the Enterprise. He was thinking about joining Starfleet again, but he wanted to pick different service. Maybe Farragut, Reliant or even the Defiant. He never really wanted to return to the famous Enterprise.

Enterprise was maybe the most interesting service, it maybe had the best operatives, the best technology and it was the newest, but he still wanted something else.

Since he was their agent now, he had the access to the database. When he logged in, he was surprised to find his old account still operational. They’ve just suspended it, not erased it. They obviously thought (or Pike did) that he was coming back. They had high hopes for him, back then. He had never even tried to fulfil them.

In the database, which was still mostly classified and he didn’t have access to many important things, so he just fiddled and played a bit. But he did find another secret service, which specialized just into attacks and operations, not any spying or gathering data, observing and any stupid things other services did. Its name was Vengeance, and they were right now in a bit of a competition with Enterprise. Over what, it didn’t say. It was probably just a stupid thing, as it usually was. But, it could get interesting.

He looked up the USS Vengeance, and found someone called Marcus in charge of it. His second in command and the executive officer, _and_ the leader of the special ops team was some John Harrison, from England. Then he looked them up, and come up with nothing interesting. Nothing exciting, no one with a good history to blackmail.

Blackmailing. What a nice word. He liked it very much, in fact, he only liked the blackmailing itself more than that word. It was his favourite method of persuasion, and it worked pretty well so far, and he anticipated to keep up the record of zero errors (well, except that Orion but that _didn’t_ count as far as he was concerned and she could go fuck herself).

Slips were just something he couldn’t afford. He knew that if he made a mistake, he would be getting hanged next. And that wasn’t a nice thought.

 

When he entered the office next day, he found Gaila and Spock already working, revising some documents, while Carol was obviously out.

He slid behind his computer and called up the data he requested yesterday. There was only Gaila’s report, the other two were obviously still working. So he looked over the profiles. All Romulans had tanned skin, were mostly tattooed, and they were all men. There was nothing new, and he mostly skipped the boring parts, until he stopped at Nero.

The man wasn’t old, just in his thirties. He wasn’t an important part of the normal Romulan society, actually, he wasn’t even listed there, but he was the leader of the elite Narada. There was almost nothing about him on the database. The Romulans were truly the best at hiding their history, but not good enough.

Kirk still remembered reading about the scandal which happened in the first year of his life. Some agents exposed the leaders of the Romulans and their founders as the old agents of the Vulcans, the Australian and Pacific branch of the Federation. They obviously separated on some dispute years ago, but nobody wanted the world or Federation knowing that. There was an outrage, and the Vulcans were almost discharged with disgrace, severed from Federation altogether, but that then didn’t happen. Kirk could still recall the names of the agents that did that: Chris Pike, Winona Kirk, George Kirk and Mike Garrovick. All were awarded special medals of honour, all were granted good positons, and one year later George died.

He snapped out of his morbid state when Gaila suddenly asked: “Is anyone else working on the Romulans right now?”

“Pike said it was only us. Why?” Kirk asked.

She raised her shoulders in a universal gesture of ‘I don’t know’ and pointed at the screen of her laptop: “Someone recently tampered with their files.”

“It is a possibility that agent Chekov or others of his team had some additional information which they forgot to mention earlier, and he added it to the files,” said Spock.

“No, this isn’t Chekov’s work. I know him, and he didn’t do this,” she said.

“Can you trace the one who did it?” was interested Kirk.

“Again, no, but I’m certain it came from one of our computers. Someone inside the service did this.”

“Can you at least tell me what was done? Something erased, added or changed?” he asked.

“I’ll look into it,” she said. “Whoever did this, left a lot of tracks. Looks like someone who hasn’t done this in a quite some time.”

She hasn’t exactly said “it was you”, but it sure felt like that. He wanted to say something, when Carol stormed in.

“You won’t believe what I just discovered,” she said.

“Where were you?” Kirk asked, but she ignored him, quickly sitting in the chair next to Gaila.

“I was investigating the thing you pointed out,” she said to Gaila, swiftly continued ignoring Kirk. “You were right. The Spock’s ops team was enough nice to give me all the help they could. Those links were still up, and they were able to retrieve almost a quarter of the encryption.”

She held a small USB on her hand. “I have it all here.”

Gaila immediately snatched it from her hand, plugging it into her computer.

Kirk again asked: “What links? What did you discover?”

“That computer that Narada used to send the encrypted message to Klingon’s defence forces was later crashed. It’s totally useless. But the data link they had was still up, and there were still some things left in the catche. The experts managed to retrieve it for Gaila do decrypt it now,” Carol replied.

“So?”

“So what?” was annoyed Gaila. “I will have a good long look on that very good, unbreakable encryption of theirs that is so good it can break our defences, and then I’ll try to make some sense of it. Therefore the next time I see it, I’ll be able to destroy it quicker.”

He nodded to her, then turned to Spock: “Hey, how many men do they usually dispatch? It doesn’t say here.”

“Depending on what you call usual, to where they are dispatching them, and how many resistance they are anticipating. But they do not need a lot of men, because all are fitted with a special type of a power suit. One of them can take out from five to eight of our agents in a minute, in proper fight. They used fifty agent on Klingons, and we lack reports on the USS Kelvin.” Spock answered.

“And why is none of that in this files I have here?” was irritated Kirk.

“I believe you do not have the necessary clearances yet.”

“What?” Kirk angrily gazed around the office. “Why not? If I’m to catch them, then I need to know everything and more about them. You can’t withhold information from me.”

“I rely on Commander Pike’s judgement. You are not to be trusted completely, because of your previous behaviour in this matters.”

Kirk angrily exhaled, then stared at the ceiling in submission: “Okay, okay. But how can I get anything done if I don’t know a half of the things you do? And I’m supposed to be in charge here.”

“ _Supposed_ being in bold,” murmured Gaila, and Carol started giggling.

“You two, shut up. I’m here having a mature argument, I don’t need any immature interruption,” he yelled at them, then more soothed turned to Spock: “Look, you go and tell Pike that I need clearance for all information considering the Romulans, or I quit. Wait, no, I’m going to tell him myself.”

 

And that’s how he ended up in Pike’s office, well after his shift, sitting in a really uncomfortable chair, which was just made for tormenting poor agents, listening to the old man’s anger.

“We, I mean _I_ , can’t permit such huge security risk. The Brass already wants my head on a stick because of you, and I won’t go any further. You even now know enough to cripple us very badly, I don’t want you with the power to destroy us,” the old man said.

Kirk was actually quite fond of him (not right now though), not utterly fascinated, but hey, Pike was one of co-workers of his dad! He couldn’t be _that_ bad. And that’s why he was still acting polite.

“I need access for my work, for the case _you_ ’ve assigned to me” he said again, probably for the fourth time.

But Pike only shook his head, ignored his words and went on with his lecture: “Anything that you really need will be provided to you by your three very competent colleagues. So stop bothering me!”

He left his office quite quickly after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since no one guessed where Uhura's codename is from, I am giving you another hint: It's connected to Star Trek: Enterprise


	3. Chapter 3

So here was, in his quarters, with an outdated mac, trying to hack into the Starfleet’s, or more specific, the _Enterprise’s_ database. That’s what they probably expected of him, and he was all ready to fulfil their wish.

But then he ran into an obstacle, which was called an AI. The Artificial Intelligence that they had was top-grade, and he couldn't surpass it, not with the laptop and resources he had currently. He silently cursed his assignment.

He gave up, and decided to rather look up that cute agent, McCurry or McCaw or something like that… Wait, no. McCoy, Leonard ‘Bones’, thirty years old, recently divorced, father dead, no brothers or sisters, a medical degree, a spotless record, entered the service seven years ago.

Jim smiled. _He_ was only 21 when he entered the regular service. He had McCoy beaten by two years.

Of course, that wasn't important.

He checked his watch. It was almost midnight, and tomorrow he had an early shift with Hikaru Sulu from the other team, because Carol thought he should do some physical tests regarding his fitness. She clearly thought he was a giant liability and wanted to prove that.

Kirk smiled to himself. He was fit more than enough, they just didn't know it.

 

“Watch out!”

That was Kirk’s only warning before the stick hit him in the chest, knocking him backwards on the hard mat.

The physical test included Sulu doing some alien voodoo with a stick, unpredictably lashing out and hitting Kirk, who tried to move out of the way or block the stick. _Tried_.

“Au! Who devised this test?” he yelled while he picked himself up, angrily shaking his head to clear his blurred vision.

Sulu stopped for a second, took a long breath and said: “I think it was Uhura.”

“That’s her revenge, right? But I haven’t done anything,” Kirk protested.

“Besides being a total jackass and a piece of shit, no,” commented Sulu, before leaping forward again and hitting Kirk again, this time in his back.

“What’s your problem with me?” Kirk asked.

“The simplest answer is that you have no morale, a terrible character and that you are a liar, a cheater and a slut, but that doesn't do you justice,” said Sulu.

“Forget that I ever asked,” muttered Kirk. He really needed to figure out why they hated him.

But first he had to survive this training session.

 

Then he was assigned to McCoy for target practice, who was all irritated waiting for him in the armoury.

“Hey honey,” Kirk sang in a poor attempt at a southern accent when he swung around the corner. He really liked McCoy. Like really _really_ liked. He just had to find a way to persuade McCoy to actually listen to him for a second before insulting him.

McCoy, who was leaning against the wall, angrily gazed at him: “Shut up. Sadly, I don’t have a permission to kill you yet, but I can survive one breach of protocol. Now be quiet and we’ll see about the weapons you need.”

Minutes later, Kirk was glaring at two ancient pieces of weaponry. They were so old that he didn’t even know their names. And he knew _all_ guns and pistols currently in use by humanity.

“Uau, dude, I didn't know you had a museum here!” he said, grinning wildly at McCoy’s furious frown, and asked: “Do they explode when I fire them?”

“Come on,” McCoy rather said instead of answering, and motioned Kirk to follow him.

 

“Do you want safety goggles?” McCoy asked him once they were at the ‘shooting place’.

Kirk shook his head in defiance, the same he had done when McCoy offered him earplugs.

“Okay, but I’ll have them,” McCoy said. Kirk only smiled. Goggles and earplugs were for the weak.

He then looked at the target barely seven metres away, which resembled two squares and a ring in the middle, and picked one of the guns McCoy gave him.

“Try to hit the big square first,” McCoy recommended, but Kirk again only grinned and said: “I'm going for the middle.”

The bullet barely touched the outer ring of the outer square.

Kirk’s ears were still ringing, since the gun was much louder than he anticipated, and his hand hurt from a really nasty back-blow he got. Somewhere in the process he dropped the gun from his hand.

 At first he only saw McCoy laughing at him, then he actually heard him, since his ears were in a process of falling off his head. He silently cursed himself, then painted a smile across his face and turned to McCoy, and asked: “So how sharp is _your_ aim?”

McCoy gave him a pointed look, aimed at the target, and then emptied the entire magazine right into the middle.

Kirk only whistled in astonishment.

 

That was on Tuesday. Wednesday went by without any particular thing managing to happen, and then it came Thursday. Again, nothing important. Just research, research, angry glares and insults being thrown around (but mostly at Kirk), and research.

Then came Friday, the day shit finally hit the fan.

 

The blaring alarms caught a really surprised but still yawning Kirk with a cup of hot, steaming coffee on the way to his office.

He almost yelled in surprise and dropped his coffee, but instead tried to cover his ears and looked around in confusion and general chaos, until he spotted Gaila in the corner, trying to stay out of the worst horde in the hallway.

“What’s going on?” he yelled when he managed to stumble to her.

She shook her head, and yelled back: “No idea. Let’s go to Pike’s office. He’ll know.”

And indeed, Pike did know.

When the entire two teams assembled in his office, looking a bit shaken, but prepared for a battle, the alarms have long died down. But Pike’s bad mood hasn't.

“They attacked Vulcans,” he said, like it was an explanation to everything.

Instead, after a moment of silence, a hoard of questions followed: “Who is attacking them?”

“When?”

“What do you mean, Vulcans? All of them?”

“What can we do about it?”

“Where is my coffee?”

“What do we know?”

“Why is that important?”

“Why us?”

Even a simple: “What?” and a simpler: “Wha’?” were muttered.

Pike silenced them with a whistle, looked around the astonished faces, and went on explaining: “Ten minutes ago, our network received a distress call from the Vulcan HQ, saying that they were under attack from an unknown enemy. Then they dropped out of connection. Our AI’s can see what’s going on,” he said. “And that’s really worrying.”

“What about our satellites? Can we at least see them from there?” asked Gaila.

Pike shook his head: “No. There is something covering and hiding that whole area. No satellite pictures, not even from other satellites, not even from Google Earth! And even our best AAS can’t break through whatever they put up.”

“AAS?” puzzled Kirk whispered to Gaila, who nodded and whispered back: “Advanced Artificial Sentience. Quite clever, really. I’ll explain the details later.”

“That’s why we are going there, to Australia, to try to assist them. We don’t have the slightest idea of what they are doing there, what’s going on or who is attacking them, but you know that’s probably Romulans. Our main forces are right now engaged in the Laurentian situation, so we can’t count on them. We are dispatching one airplane, which will take off in 25 minutes. It’s our fastest, and can reach Australia in two hours,” Pike said. He looked around his people, then continued: “It can’t carry a lot of people, so only the following personnel are going with me: Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, Chekov, Scott, Spock and Uhura, no one else. Get ready.”

Surprisingly, Gaila and Carol weren't very angry to be left out. They were just furious.

So others, ‘the chosen ones’, nodded and started leaving his office, when Uhura loudly protested: “No, you can’t take Kirk! He is their spy! How can you not see it? He can’t go!”

Pike snapped at her: “Agent Uhura, I'm well aware of all weird and suspicious circumstances concerning agent Kirk, and I decided that he is going with us. I can’t offer you a chance to stay behind, because we need everybody. And I do mean everyone.”

Uhura stared at him for a moment, then lowered her head: “I'm coming.”

“Kirk, you to. I want you to behave – one step out of line, and I'm throwing you out of the plane without a parachute.”

Kirk tried his best to look threatened, but he didn't succeed.

 

So here they were, in a small supersonic jet, designed for only eight people and their armour. Sulu sat at the controls with Chekov, Scotty was in the back with his engines, and Uhura and Spock were immersed in an iPad. Kirk had no one to talk to, except Pike and McCoy. Pike was angrily glaring at anyone who dared to come even close to his seat, so that left McCoy.

McCoy, who was surprisingly silent from the moment the jet left the hangar.

Kirk eased in a seat next to him and gently hit him in the shoulder: “Hey, you ok?”

McCoy glared at him, and Kirk could see that he was green in the face. “I may throw up on you,” he said.

Kirk only smiled, and said: “What, are you afraid of flying?”

“Actually, I have _aviaphobia_ , and that’s fear of dying in something that flies, so no, I'm not afraid of the flying itself,” McCoy sluggishly said.

“But didn't you say that Sulu is the best pilot we could have?” asked Kirk.

“Yeah, I did, didn't I?”

“So what could happen?”

“Do you really want to push me, kid?”

 

“Okay, people, mission debrief. There are five jets beside ours: Antares, Farragut, Hood, Newton and Wolcott. Since their HQs are all positioned more to the west, they’ll be there about fifteen minutes earlier than us. We’ll maintain contact with them the whole time. They are going to land at the west side, taking Geraldton, Viluna and Meekatharra. We are landing in Port Augusta, in the important data storage facilities, known as VDS. We need to bring as much data on board as we can. The carrying, that’s your job, Kirk, McCoy and Spock. Uhura, decrypt whatever you intercept from our enemies. I want to know exactly what we’re up against. Chekov, I need you to hack into the Vulcan’s AI and extract some specific information, list of which I’ll give you later. Scotty, take a good long look at our enemies’ planes or whatever vehicles they are using, try to disable them, and get me their plans! Sulu, you are with him.”

They all looked at each other, especially Spock and McCoy at Kirk.

“Why do we need Kirk for?” protested McCoy. “I'm completely good without him.”

Pike only glared at him, and McCoy rolled his eyes, then turned to Kirk.

“Can we trust you, kid?” he asked. “Because I wouldn't say so.”

Kirk grinned: “You betcha.”

McCoy rolled his eyes again, this time more energetically, with a feeling, and groaned: “We are screwed.”

“Our ETA is seventeen minutes,” said Sulu, then added: “Sir, the other jets have just dropped out of contact.”

“Try to re-establish the connection,” ordered Pike.

“I did, there is no response,” said Sulu. “They are simply gone!”

“What do you mean, gone?” was interested Uhura.

“The sensors aren't showing them, their communicators are offline, and satellites can’t find them!” said Sulu.

“Recalibrate sensors!” ordered Pike to Chekov, who enthusiastically pressed some switches, then sighed: “No good. Ve still can’t read zhem. Zhere must be something wrong vith zhe machine.”

Now Uhura leaned forward: “Open transmitter to all frequencies. I want to hear everything.”

Chekov did something to the control panel, but nothing came from the sound system.

“Why are they so quiet? Chekov, check their signature,” said Pike.

“It is gone,” said Chekov.

“If they are still on their old positions, we’ll arrive in the visual range in three, two, one…” counted down Sulu, then everyone loudly took a long breath of astonishment.

The dark, black smoke, which was ascending to the light sky from the dark waves below them, was not a pleasant sight. It clearly showed what kind of cruel end did the occupants of those jets encounter.

“They were shot down!” yelled Sulu after a second of silence.

“With what?” asked Uhura.

“Probably ground-air missiles. But how could anyone know we were coming?” said Kirk.

“You tell me,” snorted Sulu, but shut up when he saw pissed off Pike, who yelled: “Silence! The plan has changed. If they are all down, we’ll do something different.”

 

Those were the famous last words, smiled Kirk later.

He never liked falling, though.

And here he was nevertheless, jumping of a fucking plane with only a fucking (maybe malfunctioning – you never know) parachute. He looked to his right, where Sulu was sustaining his altitude, and to left, where Chekov was bravely holding a smile on his face.

Pike and the rest of the team flew forward, to the main camp in Geraldton, to try to salvage whatever was left, and Kirk and his new team were left here, to try to save some precious data from the famous VDS.

He should’ve read Terms and Conditions when Pike invited him to join them.


	4. Chapter 4

They managed to land not that far behind the main building, quickly disappearing from the landing place, leaving only their parachutes there. From the barrel behind which they were currently crouched, they could see guards protecting some sort of exit from the building. Romulans, of course. There were only three of them, and Kirk knew he could take all of them on by himself. But if they were really armed with that special type of suit Spock told him about, there may be troubes.

“Sulu, in what kind of combat are you trained?” Kirk asked him, since no one bothered to debrief him on it.

“Fencing, but I can shoot too,” Sulu said, still inspecting the doorway.

“Chekov?”

“I can shoot too!”

“Good, we’ll need that for later. Now, Sulu, do you have a muffler or a silencer? Whatever you call it,” Kirk said.

“I have one.”

“Excellent.”

 

Those three guards literally didn’t know what hit them. The bullets were perfectly aimed, and the only sound was that of their bodies hitting the pavement, nothing else.

Sulu, Kirk and Chekov sprang forward, right to the backward gate, through it, and they were inside the building.

It was dark inside, but there was still some light, enough to softly illuminate the staircase. It would be a perfect spot for an aesthetic picture, if there weren’t guards waiting to kill them behind next corner. The map they had with them showed that the data storage they were looking for was in the basement, at the lowest lever. How convenient.

Sulu looked around, then showed Kirk and Chekov forward: “You go down. I’ll stay guard here.”

“No!” repelled Kirk. “Chekov and I alone won’t be able to bring out even a half of the data disks we need. And there will be guards. I can’t take out all of them.”

“Okay, I’m coming. But if they catch us, is all your fault,” said Sulu.

Kirk only shrugged, then remembered: “Hey, no chance that you have a movement sensor somewhere in your back pack?”

“Do you wanna bet?” Sulu said, pulling it out and installing it on the wall. Kirk grinned, then headed downstairs.

 

The main room was indeed heavily armed, with four men watching the doors, and another two in front of a computer terminal.

“There! I have to get there!” excitedly whispered Chekov, pointing at the terminal.

“Okay. You stay here. Sulu, we need to take those six men down without raising a major alarm. Can you do that?”

Sulu slowly raised his katana from his belt, looking all ninja-y like: “Of course.”

“Good. You take those two by the terminal, and I’ll take the other four,” Kirk said, then his eyes shone with something wild, predatory. Sulu moved a bit away from him.

“Let’s go!” Kirk suddenly whispered, and scampered forward.

Sulu jumped around the small table they’ve been hiding behind, and landed right in front of one of the men, cutting his neck with a swift move. The other one brought his blade out, but Sulu kicked out of his hand, raising his arm for a blow, but his hand was deflected by the chair the Romulan threw at him. He ducked, but a bit too late, and sharp pain stabbed in his arm with the katana. He didn’t let that stop him, though, he simply took the katana in his other hand and kicked the man in his stomach, and when he crumpled forward and down, he sliced his neck.

When he looked up, he saw Kirk grinning at him from the pile of dead bodies, and then he said: “That was too easy. There were supposed to be more men.”

“Do you think they are inside?” asked Sulu.

“Maybe,” Kirk said, then turned to Chekov, who was already standing by the terminal. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Good, good. I just need a few minutes!”

“Okay,” Kirk said and pulled some weird device out from his backpack.

“What’s that?” asked Sulu

“A heat sensor. Scotty was nice enough to give me one after some persuasion. No, let’s see who is inside,” Kirk said and scanned the room.

“Only three heat signatures. One of them is probably the computer core, this one is a square - what it is, I don’t know, but it is not a person, and this is the guard,” he pointed at the third one. Then he turned to Chekov: “You stay here. Download as much as you can, but if we come running out of that room, prepare to be upstairs before us.”

“Okay,” Chekov keenly nodded.

“Sulu, ready?” asked Kirk.

Sulu nodded.

“Well then. We throw the doors down on my mark… One… Two… GO!” Kirk yelled, running forward and kicking the doors down.

The poor old door didn’t stood a chance. It broke down, sending clouds of dust in the air, damaging the visibility in the room considerably for quite some time.

And that time the agents used very well.

Kirk was the first one through, immediately shooting the guard in his chest and head, but the bullets bounced off him like they were nothing. The guard then lurched forward, grabbing unprepared Kirk by his waist and throwing him across the room.

Sulu could hear Kirk’s cry of pain when his body hit the floor, but he didn’t have time to look after him. Instead, he swung forward, in intention to kick the man backward.

The plan would’ve worked, if the man wouldn’t just in that moment turned, and intercepted Sulu’s kick with his hands, grabbed his foot and threw him down. Then he pulled out a gun, and aimed it at Sulu’s head. Sulu rolled to the left, away from the deadly bullets, then tried to jump to his feet again.

But the man was prepared – he kicked forward, hitting Sulu in the stomach. Sulu rolled together, his arms clasped across the stomach, to shield it. Then the man dropped onto his knees on Sulu’s chest, his hands finding Sulu’s neck and crawling around it. Sulu could feel the man’s reinforced gloved hands choking him, and he tried to move, to pry the man’s hands off, but he couldn’t achieve anything.

His vision started darkening, his lungs started burning and his arms started shaking. He couldn’t last much longer without oxygen, and his last thoughts were all about how he failed the mission.

Then the man groaned, and his hands left Sulu’s throat. Sulu opened his eyes, and drew a deep breath of sweet air, then immediately started to choke.

Kirk was standing over the now dead man with a dagger in his hand. “You owe me one,” he told Sulu, slipping the dagger back into his boot.

Sulu nodded, and Kirk smiled in response, then turned around and went over to that cube he identified earlier as some sort of a computer core.

“What are you doing?” asked Sulu, wincing at his hoarse voice and painfully throbbing throat when he picked himself up and staggered over to Kirk.

“I need some information. You look over that man. He is wearing something weird,” said Kirk.

Sulu silently nodded. He still wasn’t fond of Kirk, but right now he was in command, and Sulu was supposed to trust and listen to him.

Kirk now pressed a button on the black square he was examining, and a small hologram keyboard popped up. His fingers quickly started touching the keys in practised moves, and the giant screen which was disguised as a normal dark wall light up and filled with information he was accessing, but too quickly for a human eye to follow.

He peered over his shoulder; Sulu wasn’t watching him.

Sulu was actually very busy with examining the fallen (dead) soldier. It was an ugly Romulan, with some sort of extremely interesting protective suit. A well trained man in a suit like that could take down at least ten agents by himself, if not more.

He shivered at that thought. If normal Romulans had that sort of equipment, what was in store for them when they went against Narada?

Then something in his pocket bleeped. He took it out – the proximity alert on the bug he planted upstairs was just activated.

“Chekov, Kirk, we’ve got to go,” he yelled.

Chekov poked his head in Sulu’s line of sight and eagerly said: “I am ready!”

“Kirk!” bellowed Sulu.

Kirk enthusiastically nodded: “Coming!” and unplugged the data disk from the machine, slipping it into his pocket. Then he turned around, and run to Sulu and Chekov, arming the kid with his Sig Sauer of which he was very fond of.

“You go behind us. Shoot anything that moves. Sulu…”

Sulu was already moving to the stairs, his katana back on his back, a gun in his arms searching for targets. Kirk for a moment had to appreciate his cat-like movements, then he followed him, with a gun he picked from the fallen guard.

Right before they ascended to the top, Sulu stopped, signalling Kirk and Chekov to lie down, listening to the people upstairs talking.

“Can you understand them?” whispered Sulu to no one in particularly.

Kirk shook his head, Chekov said: “No.”

“Well great. So what do we do next?”

Kirk peeked over the top of stairs: “There are four of them. I think no one is wearing that suit, but I can’t be sure.”

“Check that scanner Scotty gave you,” suggested Sulu.

“Good idea,” said Kirk and pulled out his scanner. “No one is wearing a suit. We can take them. Actually, I can take them. You two call the jet and get somehow out.”

Sulu rolled his eyes. Kirk was obviously showing off.

Chekov looked shocked: “You are going to beat zhem all by yourself?”

“Da, little guy,” smiled Kirk, and got a really angry look from Sulu and Chekov in return.

 

The jet was waiting for them when they got out. The second team looked no worse off, the only indicator of what they were through was a bruise on McCoy’s cheek. Kirk and Chekov gave their disks with information to Pike, who picked them up with a short nod of approval.

“You were quite early,” he said. ”We were almost late.”

Kirk plopped down on a seat next to McCoy, who tilted away, and smiled: “Well, we did get everything you’ve requested, and a couple of other things really quickly. There were no Vulcans left. And also, their security was shit.”

“That’s good to know,” said Pike. “And we didn’t find and Vulcans either. Looks like they killed everyone. Now, we have to get back quickly. The command already knows everything that has happened, and they are in an emergency session right now.”

Uhura dropped her gaze, and sat beside Spock, slowly putting her hand around his shoulders. Kirk leaned to McCoy: “What’s with them?”

“Two of Uhura’s friends were on the Farragut’s jet. And Spock’s parents were working for Vulcan.” McCoy quietly said.

Kirk understandingly nodded: “Oh,” and gave Uhura a small, sad smile in sympathy, and a straight nod to Spock.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence while the jet lifted up, Chekov send Sulu a very pointed look, and Sulu nodded, then broke the silence: “Are we going into war?” asked Sulu, voicing w main pessimistic thought occupying everyone’s brains.

“Probably not,” said Pike after a short pause.

“But they destroyed five of our planes! They killed thirty-nine Starfleet personnel and many more Vulcans! We can’t just let that go!” heatedly protested Uhura, who couldn’t hold back tears now flooding her cheeks anymore.

“And we won’t,” assured her Pike. “But we can’t just declare a war. We don’t even know who they were working for and who are we supposed to attack.”

“That’s easy; Romulans! We saw them,” said McCoy.

“Not so fast, ladie,” tapped him on his arm Scotty, and Pike nodded: “It’s not that easy. I already talked to the command, and they say the Romulans deny any involvement.”

“And you believe them?” asked Kirk.

“They’ve never denied their actions before, and they also didn’t a rational reason to do what they did, after that truce we signed. The information they took, or wanted to take, is something Romulans would have no use off. _And_ we saw their armour: is not the usual one,” explained his reasoning Pike.

“Are you saying Narada did this?” asked very shocked McCoy, who put together two and two.

“Most probably. But I’ll have more information when we arrive to HQ. I can’t tell you anything serious before.”

 

Kirk hoped for some time off when the jet finally landed, and since no one dragged him straight to somewhere boring, he caught a short nap on one of the benches behind the hangar. He didn’t know where others wandered off, and he didn’t really care (as long as no one bothered him). No one interrupted him, so he assumed everyone was just too busy dealing with that crisis that really didn’t affect him at all. Really, he was perfectly fine.

Gaila was the one who woke him up, roughly shaking his shoulders: “Hey, hey, wake up. We have a meeting in a minute.”

“How… How long was I here?” he asked while he slowly lifted his head up and looked around.

Gaila grabbed his arm and pulled him up, and said: “About fifteen minutes. Pike has just returned from a very serious debriefing.”

“Okay,” Kirk said, and turned towards main building, when Gaila caught his arm: “And Kirk?”

“What?” he asked, a bit annoyed.

“After what just happened, please don’t act like an asshole. We don’t need that right now.”

Then she left him behind, quickly sprinting to the main building.


End file.
